CoinDesk
Midnight's NIGHT token crashed roughly 43% to an all-time low after a Wanchain bridge exploit drained 290 million tokens on Monday, before staging a 19% rebound within 24 hours and trading near $0.022. The attacker dumped the stolen NIGHT through the legacy Wanchain bridge on the Binance-Cardano corridor, wiping out weeks of price gains in hours.
Charles Hoskinson pushed back at coverage that focused only on the crash, posting on X that reporters "magically" forget to mention the rebound. In a CoinDesk interview he called the incident "a case of the Mondays" while acknowledging its seriousness in a wider context: "All software is under this enormous assault," he said, pointing to a surge in Linux kernel vulnerabilities he attributes to AI-powered exploit discovery. His framing: even well-built systems remain exposed. "That's like being 90% resistant to a deadly disease. If you're exposed to it enough, eventually you still catch the disease."
Why it matters
The exploit hit a third-party bridge rather than Midnight's own zero-knowledge architecture, and that distinction is the entire argument Hoskinson is trying to make. Bridges remain crypto's most persistent and costly attack surface, with the Ronin, Wormhole and Nomad incidents alone draining more than $1.5 billion. His case is that ZK systems like Midnight are built to remove the operator and multisig trust dependencies that make bridges exploitable in the first place. The rebound is partly a vote of confidence in that thesis, and partly a reminder that NIGHT is still exposed when it routes through legacy rails.
Market impact
A 19% bounce from an all-time low is not a full recovery; NIGHT is still trading well below pre-exploit levels and the 290M tokens remain in the attacker's hands. Watch for whether Wanchain or Midnight moves to freeze remaining bridge liquidity, whether the stolen tokens get bridged out for further dumping, and whether other ZK-native chains respond with their own bridge-hardening roadmaps.
Frequently asked questions
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What happened to the Midnight NIGHT token this week?
A Wanchain bridge exploit on Monday drained 290 million NIGHT tokens, sending the price down roughly 43% to an all-time low before a 19% rebound within 24 hours brought it back near $0.022.
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Was Midnight's own architecture compromised in the Wanchain exploit?
Charles Hoskinson said the attack hit legacy bridge infrastructure built by a third party, not Midnight's own zero-knowledge architecture, and used the incident to argue that ZK systems eliminate the bridge operator and multisig trust dependencies that get exploited.
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How much money has been lost to crypto bridge hacks historically?
Bridge exploits remain crypto's most persistent attack vector. The Ronin, Wormhole and Nomad attacks alone drained more than $1.5 billion combined, and billions more have been lost across the broader category of cross-chain bridge incidents.
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What did Charles Hoskinson say about AI and crypto security?
Hoskinson said all software is "under this enormous assault" from AI-powered exploit discovery, citing a surge in Linux kernel vulnerabilities as evidence. He framed the risk as cumulative exposure: "That's like being 90% resistant to a deadly disease. If you're exposed to it enough, eventually you still catch the…
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Where does NIGHT trade now after the rebound?
After the 19% bounce from its all-time low, NIGHT was trading near $0.022, still well below pre-exploit levels. The 290 million stolen tokens remain in the attacker's hands, leaving open the risk of further selling pressure.
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